Daddy Issues
by HeidiBug731
Summary: The news that you're going to be a parent should be good news, but that's not the case for Remus Lupin. Takes place during DH. Includes Remus's decision to leave and also when he goes back to Tonks after talking with Harry at Grimmauld Place.


For Cassie, who partly inspired this with talk of a fic she wanted to write of what happened when Remus came home to Tonks after trying to leave with the trio to find the horcruxes. Happy Christmas, Cassie!

* * *

"Remus?"

"Hmm?"

He was standing at the counter, making himself a cup of tea. She thought about waiting until he'd finished, but then she decided it would be better to get it done and over with.

"I'm pregnant."

The cup he had been holding fell to the ground and shattered, spilling hot water across the floor. Tonks cringed and suddenly wished she'd gone with her initial instinct and had waited. He turned to her slowly, and she saw all the emotions of shock, surprise, and fear written over his face, but not a single line of joy or awe or amazement.

He stood there, staring stupidly at her. He tried to think of something to say, something that would express what he assumed couples were supposed to feel when they got this kind of news, some words of delight and not of the cold dread that had dropped into his stomach. But when he opened his mouth to speak, not much came out:

"Dora, I . . . I . . ."

He racked his brain again. _Come on_, he thought. There had to be something intelligent floating around up there. There had to be something he could say to tell her that he was happy but that also wouldn't put up a red flag to signal he was lying.

But there wasn't anything.

"I'm sorry, I . . . I . . . uh . . ."

She shook her head. "It's okay. I wasn't expecting you to-"

"No. No. It's not okay. I . . . come here."

Finally, giving up on words, he moved toward her, stepping around the broken glass at his feet. She came toward him, and they met somewhere in the middle. He put his arms around her and held her tightly, and he prayed that this small action was enough to let her know that he wasn't upset or angry, that he wanted to be glad and thrilled, that somewhere, deep down, he was sure he _was_, in fact, filled with positive emotion . . . he just couldn't find it at the moment.

She stood with her arms around him, disappointed in their embrace. She too was scared, in part, about the knowledge that they were going to have a baby, but she had felt joy as well when her speculations had been confirmed. Fear had shown on Remus's face, and though she hadn't expected him to be _thrilled_ at the news, she had at least thought he'd show some form of mirth. But he hadn't. When he'd put his arms around her, she had hoped that his embrace might hold some shred of light emotion, but there was no warmth in it - warmth for _her_, yes, but she felt no warmth for her news, for the baby.

"Talk to me, Remus," she pleaded. Despite the fact that talking hadn't been working for him the past few times he'd tried, she needed to know. "What are you feeling?"

He hesitated. "I'm terrified."

She held him tighter in response, but no matter how warm his body felt against hers, she couldn't ease the cold feeling that had suddenly crept into her stomach.

* * *

Remus couldn't sleep that night. He lay awake for hours with his eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. At last, he heard Tonks's slow breathing and felt it was safe to open his eyes. He rolled over and placed a hand on her stomach where their child was growing.

This wasn't right. They couldn't have a child _now_, in the middle of a war.

_How did this happen?_ He banished the thought as quickly as it came. It didn't matter how they had neglected to take precautions. What mattered was that Tonks was pregnant and she _was_ going to have a baby . . . in the middle of a war, no less.

Remus ran his hands distressingly over his face. No. No. He had to remain calm. He had to think about this rationally.

They were in the middle of a _war_, and they were going to have a baby? How? How could they raise a child like this?

The risk of death was high in a war, of course, but Tonks had already been personally threatened. Bellatrix wanted her, badly, and all because she'd married _him_. She'd married a werewolf, which was much, much worse than a muggle like her mother had chosen. She'd invited rot to fester in her family tree, and Bellatrix would not stand for that.

And their child! Dear, god, their _child!_ The child of a werewolf! Bellatrix would not stand for that either. Their son or daughter would be hunted just as Tonks was being hunted, and all because he was . . .

It was his fault. He shouldn't have married her. He should have realized the danger he'd be putting her in. But he _had _realized it, and she had said she didn't care, and he loved her, and - god damn it! He never should have lost control of his senses!

Yes, he loved her. Yes, she told him over and over again that she knew the risks, that she didn't care. But a child? A child who had no say in the matter? A child that, until the war ended, would be hunted from birth by Voldemort's crew, a child that didn't ask to be an outcast, or have a werewolf father, or a-

Remus sat bolt upright at a thought that hadn't crossed his mind before and had to stifle a cry with his hand. _Oh, god, please, no._ _No. No. No._ He'd never forgive himself. Never.

What if he passed his condition on? What if his child, never bitten but having the misfortune of being conceived by a werewolf father, would be afflicted by the phases of the moon?

Fear, more terrible that anything Remus had ever experience, gripped him. Tears sprang to his eyes at the horrible thought that he may have unknowingly infected something as helpless and innocent as an unborn child.

_It can't happen_, he told himself. _I won't let it._

But it was too late. There was nothing he could do but wait and see. And if the baby was infected . . . He knew, without a single shred of doubt, that his own child would hate him for the entirety of their life span.

* * *

Remus's anxieties did not abide the next morning.

"I don't know the first thing about how to be a father."

"Well, I don't know the first thing about how to be a mother, so I think we're even on that."

Remus ran a hand through his hair. "It's the worse possible timing."

She nodded thoughtfully in agreement.

"War is no time to raise a child, Dora."

"I doesn't matter," she told him. "This is happening and we're just going to have to go with it. Remus," she grabbed his arm, "it's going to be all right. It will work out just fine."

"You don't know that."

"And you don't know for certain that the world's going to come to an end, so stop stressing over it."

They had had several talks about his pessimistic point of view of the world, and usually, when conversations ventured back in that direction, a light smile would creep across his face in memory of how crazy their previous talks had been. But there was no smile on his face now.

"Dora . . ."

He was having trouble talking again, and she gave his arm an encouraging squeeze.

"What if it . . . what if it's . . . like me?"

The look that fell across her features told him clearly that she hadn't thought of it before. Her face fell and her grip slackened, and a few moments passed before she spoke.

"Then," she said quite simply. "It's like you."

He shook his head. "I won't accept that."

"You'll have to, if that's the case."

He brought a hand to his face, a clear sign that he didn't think she'd understood him.

"Remus," she was gripping his arm again, "chances are it won't-"

"Chances?" He brought his hand from his face and looked at her incredulously. "Dora," he ran his hands stressfully through his hair before bringing them back down before him in a gesture of helplessness, "we don't know-"

"It's _okay_ not to know, Remus," she said. "Why does it frighten you so much?"

He stared at her. "Why doesn't it frighten you?"

She thought for moment and then said, "Because I love you, because we love each other, and no matter what happens - good or bad - I know we'll make it through, together."

She smiled up at him and although he managed to smile down at her, she knew he wasn't convinced.

* * *

It didn't take long for Remus to come to the conclusion that he should leave. His wife and unborn child were outcasts because of him, and Bellatrix wanted Tonks dead more than anything. If he left, Tonks and the baby would be better off. They wouldn't be cast in such an ugly light, and they wouldn't be such a target. If he left, it would be for their own good.

Still, his decision plagued him. Tonks had been the must wonderful thing that had ever happened to him, and he didn't want to hurt her anymore than he already had.

She noticed his downcast mood, he made excuses, she called him out on them, and he told her he was just worried about the baby. Then they ended up having the same conversation they had had earlier, about how everything was going to be okay even though he couldn't see it.

* * *

Bill and Fleur's wedding came and went. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had holed up in Grimmauld Place, and Remus told Tonks that he wanted to check in on them, make sure they were okay, and see if they needed anything. He didn't tell her that he was going to offer to join them.

But it didn't matter. After talking with Harry, Remus had disapparated and stood at his destination shaking from head to toe with anger, Harry's words resounding in his head. How _dare_ he say such things! He was _not_ abandoning his wife and child - why couldn't Harry see that? He was _protecting_ them! He was _not_ out for adventure or glory - couldn't Harry see how _difficult_ this decision had been for him? It wasn't easy! He _loved_ Tonks, and he hadn't liked the thought of leaving her or the baby, but it was for the best - he _knew_ that. He shouldn't have expected Harry to understand. A _coward_, Harry had called him a _coward_ when this was the _hardest_ thing he had _ever_ decided to do in his life.

Remus walked the street, positively fuming. Even after he got his anger under control, Harry's accusing face still loomed in his mind's eye and his harsh words still played in his ears. Harry, whose parents had died protecting him. Harry, whose parents had, in a sense, walked out on him in an attempt to keep him safe. Remus had expected Harry to understand, to see that he was only doing for his wife and child what Harry's parents had done for him.

But maybe that had been the problem; maybe Harry had understood all too well.

And suddenly, it wasn't Harry who was yelling at him in his mind's eye, but his own child. His son or daughter was standing before him, accusing him of "dumping" them and their mother, of being a "daredevil" and a "coward," telling him how ashamed of him they were.

Remus tried to explain, his argument with Harry playing over in his head. He tried to tell them that he had done it for their own good, that he had only been trying to protect them, that it hadn't been easy for him either. But just as he had failed with Harry, he failed with his own child.

And then, instead of it being Harry who he blasted into the wall, it was his own flesh and blood. Remus cringed at the scene his mind had come up with. He wouldn't do that to his own child . . . then again, he never would have thought that he'd do such a thing to Harry either.

_I hope he's all right_, Remus thought to himself. _No, he's fine. I'm sure he is._

As their argument replayed in his head yet again, Remus realized that Harry had been shaking with anger every bit as much as he, himself, had been.

It was then that Remus knew he'd very nearly made the biggest mistake of his life.

* * *

"Remus?" Her voice sounded high pitched, almost shrill, as though she were afraid or surprised. When she came out into the hallway and saw that it was in fact he who had come through the door, she ran to him and threw her arms around him in one of the biggest hugs he had ever received from her. "You came back."

"What do you mean? Of course I came back?"

She let go of him and when he looked in her eyes he could tell that she knew.

"You knew I was . . . leaving?" The thought horrified him.

She shook her head. "Not until you'd actually left. I just got this feeling and I knew that you . . . I thought of going after you but . . ."

"Why didn't you?"

She couldn't meet his eyes and he realized that he wasn't the only one who had come to a decision.

"I didn't come after you because . . . because I'm _always_ coming after you!" She turned away from him, apparently finding it better to vent her frustration at the wall than at him. "I try and I try and _every_ time you come back to me, you end up turning away again! And I knew when we got married that things weren't just going to fall into place, that you weren't just going to suddenly change, but it didn't matter because I chose it! I chose to marry you, to love you, faults and all! I'd deal with it! It was my choice!

"But a _child_, Remus!" She turned to face him now. "A child doesn't get to chose who their parents are, a child doesn't get a choice! And if you were just going to walk out, then I wasn't going to go after you because if I got you to come back and you still had second thoughts and you tried to leave again - maybe after the baby was born - then I wasn't about to-" Her voice broke, and he saw the struggle between anger and tears that was going on inside her.

The tears won.

"I love you, Remus," she said, moisture welling up in her eyes and threatening to roll down her face. "Merlin knows how much I love you, but I am not going to explain to our child why their father walked out on them - I won't do it!" She closed her eyes for a moment and he saw the tears that she was fighting back fall through her lashes. "I didn't go after you because I thought it was better to just let you go now instead of later, so that when our child asks why their father isn't around, I wouldn't have to say that you walked out on us. I could just say that you walked out me."

A sob escaped her throat and she turned away from him again. For a moment, Remus stood frozen to the spot, not knowing what to say or do. He'd realized earlier that he'd been making a big mistake, but it wasn't until that moment that he realized just how big of a mistake it really was.

At last, he moved toward her. He put a hand on her shoulder and she turned and slapped him hard across the face.

Okay, he'd deserved that.

She tried to push away from him, but he wrapped his arms around her and wouldn't let her go. At length, she relaxed and sobbed into his shoulder.

He watched his own tears fall, creating tiny dark circles on the back of her robes.

"Dora, I'm so sorry," he said. "I'm so sorry."

He hadn't meant to hurt her, it was the last thing he ever wanted to do, but somehow he always seemed to manage to do it anyway, even with the best of intentions.

"I came back, though," he said. "Doesn't that mean something?"

She seemed to sob even harder, and for a moment he thought he'd said something wrong, but then her arms tightened around him and she said, "It means everything."

They stood like that for a long while until, at last, they pulled away from each other. There were tears on both their faces. He reached out a hand to brush the moisture from her cheek.

"What made you change your mind?" she asked.

"Harry didn't like the idea of me going with him as much as I thought he would."

"He's a smart boy, that one."

"He can be," he said, wiping his own tears on the back of his hand. "I'm sorry I make you put up with my idiocy."

"I told you, it's my choice." She placed a hand on her stomach. "It's the baby I'm worried about."

He stepped toward her. Taking her hands, he looked into her eyes. "I'm not leaving," he said, "ever. No matter how bad it gets . . . or how bad I _think_ it gets."

She managed a soft smile, but she wasn't sure she could truly trust his words until he held her once again and said, "We're going to have a baby." It was first time she'd ever heard him say it with such wonder in his voice.


End file.
